The present invention relates to a greasing device for cables.
It is known that cables, and in particular metal cables which are mounted on systems of pulleys, need to be constantly greased. Greasing is carried out to assure smoothness and uniformity to the movement of said cables, as well as to enable the elementary wires constituting the strands of said cables to slide relative to one another when the cables are under tension, and to protect said cables from the external ambient.
In particular, metal cables of cranes, cableways, winches, and lifting apparatus in general, and of fishing boats and mine sweepers are kept constantly greased.
Up to now, the above cables have been greased at time intervals by smearing a film of grease on the whole surface of the cables by means of brushes or spray guns.
The above manual operations or techniques have a number of drawbacks. Firstly, the devices or apparatus comprising said cables to be greased must be stopped, and cannot be used for the whole duration of the greasing operation. Secondly, manual smearing of grease on a cable by means of brushes or spray guns involves a considerable waste of grease and a bad distribution of the same on the surface of the cable, since formation of a uniform film of grease having a predetermined thickness on the whole surface of the cable by manual smearing said grease is practically impossible. Moreover, particularly with apparatus comprising very long cables, such a manual greasing operation is very expensive because of both the cost of labour and the long time period of forced inactivity of said apparatus. Finally, manual greasing of cables may result in a very dangerous operation when the cables of a crane or those of a cableway are to be greased.